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nii,e Qhost in the Tomer 

^nTlpisode inj^acohia 


By Earl H. Reed 




Privately Printed 



Copyright, 1921 
by Earl H. Reed 


DEC 20 i92! 



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The Ghost in the Tower 


V 


GHOST never makes the mistake of appear- 
ing before more than one person at a time. 
There may be much logic in this, for the ele- 
ment of mystery, which is one of the essential attributes 
to comfortable ghostly existence, would be destroyed if 
that existence should be established at some one time 
and place by a preponderance of unimpeachable testi- 
mony. 

There is a ghost in my friend Jacobs’ water tower 
over in Michigan, or at least there was one there last 
Christmas eve. To me he was visible most of the time 
during a long interview I had with him, and to me he 
had all of the elements of reality. Nobody who reads 
this narrative will be in a position to dispute his exis- 
tence, for, so far as I know, he and I were the only occu- 
pants of the tower at the time. If my nebulous friend 
should choose to make himself known to somebody 
else, it may furnish material for discussion and com- 
parison of experiences in the future, but in the meantime 
controversy is quite useless. 

To those who do not live in the world of romance 
and errant fancy, the winter landscapes along the east- 
ern shore of Lake Michigan offer few allurements. 

[51 



The Ghost in the Tower 


The sweeping miles of piled and broken ice, the bleak 
and desolate bluffs, with their pale brows — fringed 
with naked trees — in moody relief against the dull 
skies, that are flecked with the white forms of the roving 
winter gulls, seem to repel every thought except that 
of hoped for creature comforts in some human habita- 
tion beyond. If it were not for these distant aureoles 
of hope — mirages though they often are — how gray 
and dreary the world would be. 

Notwithstanding a love of Nature in her sterner 
moods, it was not for this that I journeyed to my 
friend’s country retreat in the winter time. I knew 
that warm hearted hospitality awaited me in the little 
farm house, nestled among the knolls back of the bluffs. 

High up on one of the hills of ‘‘Jacobia,” the tower 
bares its lofty brow to the blasts of the gales. The 
huge structure seems calmly to defy the winter winds 
whistling through its upper casements and pounding 
against its sturdy sides. The swirling snows envelop 
its weather scarred top in the darkness, and an at- 
mosphere of loneliness and isolation seems to pervade 
the great bulk, silhouetted against the flying legions 
of shredded and angry clouds, scudding across the 
gloomy and storm embattled skies at night. 

The storm that had lasted all day subsided during 
the evening, and the skies cleared, although a mournful 

[ 6 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


wind still moved over the drifted snows. The genial 
glow of the Yule Tide spirit was in the little farm 
house. The small evergreen tree that stood in the 
front room had been cut on the bluffs and brought 
through the storm during the day. Its candle-lighted 
branches had been divested of the conventional gauze 
bags of popcorn, nuts and candy, much of which was 
now scattered over the floors, and the little ones, in 
whose hearts lived the happy illusions of childhood, had 
hung long stockings about in places where they thought 
that the expected Patron Saint would be most apt to 
find them. Their melodious saxophone band had be- 
come silent, and their tired loving mother had got 
them off to bed. 

Melancholy reflections, that sometimes creep into 
older minds with Christmas memories of years that 
are gone, led me out over the moon-silvered hills for a 
walk. 

There was a weird charm in the cold shadowed 
forest and the strange stillness of the sheltered hillsides. 
A subtle witchery brooded over the familiar landscapes 
in their robes of white. I spent some time in a dark 
nook listening to a sad old owl, located somewhere up 
among the grapevine tangles and sassafras trees on a 
hill about a quarter of a mile away. Periodically he 
sent forth his loud and dismal wail into the darkness. 


[ 7 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


Like a wild cry of mockery to the world of a soul in 
torment, the sepulchral notes echoed through the woods 
and mingled with the low moanings of the wind rhythms 
among the dead clinging leaves and bare branches. 

It was nearly midnight when I approached the 
tower on my way back. Many times during my visits 
the thought had occurred to me that it was an ideal 
habitation for a ghost. The maze of timbers, water 
pipes, wires, and open winding stairways that led up to 
various landings in the successive octagonal rooms, on 
the way to the upper chamber of the tall edifice, seemed ^ 
to provide a perfect environment for a discriminating 
specter. There was every facility for concealment, and 
for sudden and vivid apparition when desired. The 
height of the vast interior would permit of majestic 
upward sweeps of a wraithy shape into the darkness 
above, and dissolution into the overhanging gloom. 
The arrangement of the stairways would enable a 
phantom to await the coming of whoever was to be 
haunted, upon any one of the floors, without being 
visible from the one above or below it. 

Architects have probably never studied construction 
with reference to the needs and convenience of ghosts, 
but if the builder of the tower had considered these 
things carefully he could not have designed arrange- 
ments more satisfactory from a spectral standpoint. 

18 ] 



THE SAD OLD OWL 








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-AiWj .■.«tr;'« (sri :- v^td branches. 

*(:v 'r,-i.'?i»ft,i,‘f ' ‘''Hr.r I aj>j.;roached the 

• ".-.'jtjr osrl ,,y tdries during niy visits 

■ »^ X-i j d.v - that it was an ideal 

i. i .i;- gas 3HT of timbers, water 

" \A#:’iw *n(; i j,-05O£j - rivvvays that led up to 
4»* :• 4 j' T, ihv- d«' , r (xtagonai rooms, on 

b.: t/’.o :,.pf'€i rf'arnbci of rue tall edifice, seemed 
t^' pTfwUh: a *! cirorment for a discriminating 

*' ■A-yrvtr, I’he-t vraf facility for concealment, and 
‘ Vri’ ' O-iJ apparition when desired. The 

<st the v,i>Af ir,r;;>ior would permit of majestic 
iip‘-^'vt‘d swiM-f'S <•.■{ j •«'■,■ ’thy shape into the darkncfs 
( 1*4 •<. ind ct?-( i?dtk7n nito the overhanging gloom, 
bria „ HAngciri'cr. ni ;he .stairways would enable -a 
y .• f 'f.’ to await ih:' coming of whoever was to b: 
t-i ; ' f d, y.pOfi any o.n.'; of the floors, without bemy 

vhc ur- i-.-c or below it. 

^ ajivc pr^.'bably never studied co^f^tru{:^^ >v, 

ft'. v/;. the needs and convenience of sr?h>^:^ 

'jAr i' '!>■> ainKKr of the tower had considered tW.-' 
carc;n>lv ?je could not have Je.si.gned arrkcg’ 
’i-., ; . * .*A!icre satisfactory iiom a spectral stand^X'!!” 


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The Ghost in the Tower 


I found the door leading into the big room on the 
ground floor unfastened and it was creaking sadly on 
its hinges. I opened it, stepped inside to light my 
pipe, and had just thrown the match aside when I 
noticed a tiny ascending wisp of something that looked 
like smoke at the base of one of the large wall stanchions 
near the first stairway. Thinking that it probably 
came from the dropped match I went toward it to 
make sure that it was quite extinguished. To my sur- 
prise the little wisp of vapor increased in volume as it 
ascended. There was a patch of moonlight on the floor, 
and a dim diffused light in the room that enabled me to 
make out various objects. The rising vapor seemed 
faintly luminous. I could not account for its strange 
visibility by the direction of the moonlight entering 
through the high window. The pale misty wreaths 
were slowly expanding in wavy convolutions and dis- 
appearing through the open steps of the stairway 
along the opposite wall that led to the floor above. 

There was something uncanny in this and while I 
had often joked with my friend Jacobs about a possible 
ghost in the tower, and had read many thrilling tales 
of specters, both benignant and malign, I never had an 
idea that I would ever be confronted with a situation 
that would suggest the actual presence of anything of 
the kind. I had always prided myself upon freedom 

[ 9 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


from superstition, but I distinctly felt a cold chill 
between my shoulder blades, as if an icy hand had 
suddenly been placed there, and was conscious of a 
slight nervous flutter and a clammy feeling. Just then 
something dropped on one of the upper floors and rolled 
across it. It had probably been displaced by a gust 
of wind somewhere far up in the tower but this inference 
did not help matters any, and, although I knew of no 
reason for it, I concluded that my nerves must have got 
into difficulties among themselves and refused to con- 
tinue their normal functions. 

I began to consider the advisability of a cautious 
retirement from the scene, thinking that a good night^s 
rest would probably correct the state of mind that made 
such a medley of unpleasant sensations possible. 

Just as I was about to leave I distinctly heard the 
words, ‘‘Good Evening!”, uttered in a thin, quiet 
voice. I looked around the room but could see no- 
body. “Here I am, up here”, continued the voice. I 
saw what appeared to be the face of a very pleasant 
and dignified old man, who seemed to be sitting on 
the stairs near the top of the room, just above the 
wreaths of disappearing vapor. The smoky waves 
apparently continued through the stairway and en- 
veloped all of him except the head — or rather he seemed 
gradually to materialize out of the wreaths, for the 

110 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


head was the only part of the apparition that bore any 
semblance to reality. There were misty forms suggest- 
ing the shoulders, but they faded off down into the 
cloudy lines, which now seemed to have ceased rising 
and were slowly waving to and fro, as if they were sus- 
pended from something above and were being gently 
swayed by a current of air. 

‘‘Good evening,” I replied, not without some trepi- 
dation. “I hope I have not intruded. I had no idea 
that there was anybody here when I came in.” 

“There isn’t anybody here but you,” continued the 
strange voice, “for according to your standards I am 
nobody at all; I am a ghost, but you needn’t be at all 
alarmed. If you’ll go over and make yourself comfor- 
table on that empty box near the other wall we can 
have a nice little visit. I have not appeared to a mortal 
for a long time and it’s a relief to have somebody to 
talk to. Since I’ve been haunting this tower I’ve 
stayed in a little crypt I have down under it. I ooze 
up through that small hole that you see near the base 
of that stanchion, and I was just coming up when you 
happened in. It takes me some little time to get 
properly settled up here, or I would have made my 
presence known before. I am not quite settled yet, but 
as you evidently intended to leave I thought I had better 
make myself known before it was too late. Otherwise 

im 


The Ghost in the Tower 

I would have had to wait until some other Christmas 
eve, for that’s the only time I ever visualize. I’ll 
tell you the reason of this later. Just remain quiet 
where you are and excuse me. I won’t be gone more than 
a few minutes.” 

With that the nebulous shape above the stairs 
changed somewhat. It became a little lighter and 
the face was more distinct. The wraithy vapor length- 
ened out and all of it, with the head at its upper end, 
drifted silently up through the stairway hole into the 
gloom above as gently and softly as the smoke from a 
pipe. 

Naturally I was now much interested. The clammy 
and creepy feeling, that had come over me at first, 
had entirely ceased. I was enmeshed in what seemed a 
supernatural web that presented fascinating possibili- 
ties. I looked at my watch which I held in the bright 
moonbeam from the window and saw that it was exactly 
midnight. At that moment I heard an unearthly 
sound that I judged was issuing from the top of the 
tower. It was a loud prolonged wail that ended in 
a dismal shriek and a high treble, and was repeated 
three times. I repressed a slight return of the creepy 
feeling, resumed my seat on the box, and patiently 
awaited further developments. Heavy thumping nois- 
es became audible from the big water pipes in the tower 

1121 



“THERE WAS A SORT OF INDEFINABLE 
REMOTENESS AND ALOOFNESS ' 


ABOUT HIM 


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midnight. At that nsoiiicat 1 lu.-erd an 
sound that i judged was issuing from the trip ti'**. 
tower. It was a loud prolonged waii that • t >,5 
a dismal shriek and a high treble, and v >/.- ‘.nc J 
three times. I repressed a slight return .-cpr 

feeling, resumed my seat on the bo.x'. -'itatly 

.•waited further developments. Heavr ' - -..i.-ig nois- 
< - ' -xame audible from the big watci ‘ ■ •■i rhe tow’t 

(121 








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The Ghost in the Tower 


and reverberated away through the underground routes 
of the smaller pipes. It occurred to me that the ghost 
might have decided to take a plunge in the large tank 
in the upper part of the structure, or was preparing to 
pull it all down, or something of that kind, and I did not 
feel that I wanted to be among the debris. To use a 
favorite expression of one of my English friends, all 
this was ‘‘getting a bit thick.’’ I was again apprehen- 
sive and was tempted to slip quietly away, but was 
somewhat reassured when I saw the vapory wisps steal- 
ing back through. the stairway opening. I was sur- 
prised to see them trail on down, becoming fainter and 
thinner, and disappear into the little hole at the base 
of the stanchion. 

In the course of a few minutes the wraithy waves 
reappeared and I soon saw the kindly old face peering 
over at me from above the high stairway rail. 

There was a sort of indefinable remoteness and 
aloofness about him — something abstract and far away 
— that seemed to discourage any familiarity, and I 
waited for him to speak first, as I felt embarrassed and 
in doubt as to how further conversation was to be 
conducted. 

I 

“I am very sorry if you have had any unpleasant 
sensations after what has just happened,” he began, 
after a few vague vibrations of the cloudy veil, that 

1131 


The Ghost in the Tower 


might have been shifted slightly to insure comfort on 
the stairway, “but it was necessary for me to float to 
the top of the tower at exactly midnight for a mani- 
festation, and I retired into the crypt below for a mo- 
ment afterwards to partake of a light draught from a 
phantom flagon that I keep there. Like the widow’s 
cruse of oil mentioned in the scriptures, my 
flagon is always full, and you will at once perceive that 
in my immaterial state I enjoy some priceless ad- 
vantages. My flagon affords me much consolation. 
The contents might seem a little musty to you if you 
were down there, but I assure you that the liquid was 
once of the very highest quality. I found it here when 
I came. Evidently something was once kept in that 
flagon that had highly reactive qualities — something 
like the kick of a mad bull — but this element had long 
been latent when I found it. I hope that you are per- 
fectly comfortable down there. If you feel cold I can 
easily warm you up with some sensations that you 
probably have never experienced.” 

I assured him that I was quite contented and did 
not require any more sensations than I was having, 
and begged him not to worry about me at all. 

“You probably would like to know something 
about me and how I happen to be haunting this tower,” 
he continued. It’s quite a long story, but I think 

114 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


you’ll enjoy it. If there are any points in the narra- 
tion that appear obscure to you, or any that you 
wish particularly to discuss, please don’t hesitate to 
interrupt me, as it’s no trouble to talk about my ex- 
periences, and there’s plenty of time, as long as we 
finish before daylight. If we should forget ourselves, 
and too much light should come, I may fade away 
quietly and become silent, but don’t be surprised or 
offended in any way, for if circumstances permit we can 
easily meet again and continue our little talk. 

‘‘My earthly name was Emric Szapolyai, and I died 
in Hungary in 1489. Measured by your standards that 
was a long time ago, but among the spirit fraternity 
time does not cut any particular figure, so, as far as my 
relationships in the abstract world are concerned, I 
might just as well have died hundreds of years before 
that or hundreds of years later. 

“You may have difficulty at first in pronouncing my 
last name correctly, but if you sneeze slightly and try to 
say ‘Apollonaris’ while you are doing it, you will probab- 
ly get it. I notice that a great many people in the 
material world are doing this now. Sometimes they 
get it and sometimes they don’t.” 

“But how is it,” I asked, “that you speak modern 
English so fluently, if you were a Hungarian and died 
so long ago, before we had any modern English.^” 

115 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


‘‘Oh, don’t worry about that,” he replied. “One 
of the great advantages of a spiritual existence is the 
ability of perfect adaptation to any language that is 
used by the person to whom a visualization is accorded. 
You have undoubtedly seen instances of this at seances 
conducted by spiritual mediums. While they are most- 
ly ignorant fakes and their methods entirely irregular, 
you have no doubt observed that Julius Caesar, who 
only talked Latin when he was alive, and Napoleon, 
who only talked Corsican and bad French, always speak 
the language or dialect peculiar to the region in which 
the seance is conducted. 

“Up to three or four years ago probably no two 
spirits were more popular or more imposed upon. They 
were called on hundreds of times every night by mediums 
all over the world. They used every known tongue from 
Choctaw to Chinese, and the funny part of it was that 
they seemed to like it. 

“They talked with a pronounced Scotch dialect in 
Glasgow, their tongues became thick in Cork, and down 
among the negro spiritualists in Alabama you would 
think that they were both born in Dahomy and died in 
Mobile. 

“They have been latent now for some time. The 
recent war in Europe has clouded them over and ren- 
dered them quite obsolete. Nobody will have to listen 

[ 16 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


to the stories of their exploits when they were alive for 
a good many years. The mediums are now invoking 
an entirely new class of spirits, and they are beseeching 
such peaceful shades as Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo 
and Edgar Allen Poe to come forth, and lots of people 
are asking for the late Czar of Russia. They all want 
to know what really happened to him. Even the spirit- 
ual fraternity has become very tired of Caesar and 
Napoleon. I know both of these shades well and have 
no more trouble in communicating with them than I 
have with you. Don’t give yourself any further uneasi- 
ness regarding spirit language. 

“1 hope you will pardon my digression. We must 
get back to Hungary. I was one of the Magyar gener- 
als who fought in the wars of King Mathias Corvinus. 
For many years I was a baron, but afterwards I became 
a duke and had special privileges over quite a large 
domain. It will interest you to know that I happen to 
haunt this tower for the reason that its builder used 
my old baronial tower in Hungary as a model, and I will 
tell you later how I happened to discover it. It looked 
so familiar and so much like home that I concluded to 
make it my headquarters as long as it stands. 

‘Tt was my custom to keep sentinels posted in the 
top of my old tower who watched for small parties of 
travelers and single wayfarers on the roads crossing my 

117 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


lands. When they appeared my horsemen would go 
out and relieve them of two thirds of the money and 
other valuables that they happened to have with them. 
They would then be provided with a token which they 
could show to the minions of neighboring vassals of the 
king, over whose lands they might have occasion to pass, 
and these tokens would insure immunity from further 
high financing — to use a modern expression. We al- 
ways respected these tokens from other domains, so you 
see the system enabled the traveling public to retain 
quite a decent portion of gold and worldly goods, con- 
sidering the opportunities offered to business enter- 
prise. We were called robber barons at that time, and 
the term may sound a little harsh, but we were univer- 
sally respected throughout the country. Nowadays 
our practices would be called mild profiteering, and 
leaving the wayfarers a third of their pelf when there 
was a chance to get it all would be considered magnani- 
mous charity. 

‘Tn return for these privileges from the crown it was 
my custom to send a wagon load of Turk’s heads to 
the King about once a month, and this was a source of 
great gratification to him. I was enabled to collect the 
trophies by frequent sorties with my forces against 
small bodies of Turks that were constantly hovering 
along our frontiers and making sudden forays into our 
territory. 


118 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


‘'After King Mathias defeated Frederick of Austria, 
who had had the impudence to proclaim himself King 
of Hungary, and who intended to exterminate all of us 
if he was successful, Mathias moved his army against 
the Turks. This war was successful, and after the cap- 
ture of Jaicza in Bosnia by assault, I was placed in 
charge of the conquered districts and made a duke. 
After this we had another war with Frederick and I was 
one of the generals commanding the army that cap- 
tured Vienna after a short siege in 1487. 

“The Magyars were a wonderful people. There was 
a man named Kinisi in our army when we were attacked 
by the Turks under Ali Bey. In the heat of the battle 
he rushed among the enemy and rescued a fallen friend. 
We were getting badly worsted in this battle, but this 
signal act of bravery inspired the Magyars and the 
Turks were almost annihilated. In the midst of the re- 
joicing over the victory, Kinisi was seen holding the 
body of a Turk by his teeth, and two others in his arms, 
and executing the Hungarian national dance. I men- 
tion this as a sample of his hardihood and originality 
for the reason that I have asked his shade to visit me 
in this tower, and it may happen that he will appear to 
you if conditions permit. Kinisi was what the world 
calls an honest man — that is to say he would never pick 
up anything that was too hot to hold, or take anything 

1191 


The Ghost in the Tower 


that was out of his reach. My reason for inviting my 
spiritual confrere here may seem a little queer to you. 

‘‘Although our mutual friend Henry Jacobs, who 
owns this tower, does not know me at all, and I have 
never appeared to him, I have had a great liking for 
him, and have much appreciated his unconscious hos- 
pitality. All unbeknown I have accompanied him on 
many of his business trips to various places, particu- 
larly to the Island of Manhattan that I happen to know 
a great deal about, as will appear later, and am quite 
familiar with his affairs. While he is perfectly able to 
take care of himself, I feel that under the circumstances 
I have a sort of spiritual responsibility, so to speak. 

“I confess that, although I am a ghost, and loneliness 
might naturally be considered my specialty, I am at 
times a little too lonely and it would be nice and sociable 
to have an old ghostly friend with me. We might 
think it best for Kinisi to go out after somebody we 
didn’t like sometime, and you may depend upon it, 
that if he starts, he will not come back alone. There 
will be other shades with him. He is one of the best 
terrifiers I ever knew. I have known him to frighten 
people so that they have jumped off the tops of high 
buildings, and he has caused many sudden exits from 
the material world. 

“I have been sensible of this moral obligation and 
this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk with you 

1201 


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l20) 














The Ghost in the Tower 


tonight. I am sorry that our friend Jacobs has never 
happened to be up here at an opportune time. I always 
make it a point to be somewhere up stairs in the tower 
during the night before Christmas. Perhaps you might 
mention this to him and I may have the pleasure of 
talking with him next year, unless for some reason I 
should be called away.” 

‘‘But what happened after the victory over the 
Turks?” I asked, seeing that my pale friend was some- 
what inclined to wander in his narrative. 

“Oh yes, excuse me. After our triumph over Ali 
Bey we had no serious trouble with the Turks for some 
time, but one night when I was asleep in my tower a 
bloody gang of these dogs came and I was hacked into 
pieces with a dozen scimitars. It is the custom of spirits 
to wear a semblance of their earthly apparel at the time 
of passing into the immaterial sphere — merely as a 
recognition of absurd human conventions — and that 
accounts for what appears to you to be a night cap on 
my head. The light, wavy lines leading away from my 
face suggest the gown I was wearing when my mortal 
remains were tossed into the depression back of my 
tower. All this happened on Christmas eve. It is a 
rule with many of the spiritual fraternity to visualize 
but once a year. I usually select this anniversary for 
such few appearances as I care to make, unless the 
occasion is something very special. 

[ 21 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


“I haunted Ali Bey for a long time after that little 
episode at the tower, and with the help of Kinisi, who 
subsequently joined me, we put him in the way of meet- 
ing a very unpleasant end. We scared him out of bed 
and into a big mosque for religious protection one 
night. Women were not allowed in mosques, as Mo- 
hammedan females were supposed to have no souls, 
but we knew that one of the members of Ali Bey’s 
harem was in there, who had fled in disguise the day 
before, and she got him with a knife that she had carried 
for use in case she was caught. I often talked with him 
after he became a shade, and eventually we became 
quite good friends. He wanted to go back after the 
girl but Kinisi and I persuaded him to let her alone. 

‘‘After we left Ali Bey I returned and haunted my 
tower for some years, but there was so much going on 
there I didn’t approve of, that I got tired of it after 
a while and went over into Dalmatia, and from there to 
the Adriatic. I established myself on board a ship 
that lay in the harbor and haunted the forecastle for 
over two years. I moved to the Captain’s cabin after 
that, and was on the upper deck at night much of the 
time. The captain was a very agreeable sort of a fellow 
although he was a bloody pirate, but I never liked the 
first mate. I chased him and four offensive members 
of the crew into the sea one night in a gale off the coast 

[ 22 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


of Barbary. I visualized to them separately, and as 
they were very superstitious they went easily. 

“We roved over the Mediterranean and captured 
considerable booty. We were making new shades con- 
stantly. After the victims were thrown overboard, or 
had walked the plank, they would generally ooze back 
in the bilge water seepage in the hold so as to enable 
them to haunt the crew, which they did with a ven- 
geance. They were mostly Spaniards and as a rule I 
found them quite pleasant. 

“I was with the Mediterranean corsairs several 
years. I visualized before Sidi ben Musa on board a 
large brigantine that he had just captured with his 
galleys off the coast of Naples, and I was with him 
during the rest of his earthly career. He conducted 
numerous important enterprises. He once organized 
an expedition to capture the pope that would have been 
successful were it not for the fact that his men did not 
know the pope by sight and bundled a cardinal into 
their boat instead. This happened on the outskirts 
of the little village of Piano d’Orno not far from Rome. 
Sidi was one of the great terrors of the sea and wielded 
a baneful power on the Mediterranean during his life- 
time. After he became a shade my association with 
him beguiled many dull periods. 

[ 23 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


‘‘After Sidi’s time there was a celebrated sea robber 
on the yEgean who was called Red Beard. Sidi and 
I were with him four years. He was thick set and 
bullet headed. His heavy jutting lips, cruel eyes, and 
long fiery red whiskers gave him a rough and wild look. 
He was an excellent and formidable pirate. Where- 
ever there was wealth to loot, involving wholesale mas- 
sacre, he was always equal to the situation. It was 
estimated that he and his men killed over three thou- 
sand people and captured over four tons of gold during 
his lifetime. He had a most profitable career, but he 
finally came to grief and was captured by a war vessel of 
the Knights of Rhodes. He was rushed down a scuttle 
into the hold of the Christian ship, where he was sub- 
jected to misery and abuse with others of his crew. The 
ship was fighting its way in the teeth of a howling gale 
to the lee of some island and it was a wild night on 
board. The roaring and whistling of the wind, the 
howls and curses of the prisoners, the creaking of timbers 
and cordage, and the piercing shrieks of the galley slaves 
as the knotted thongs bit into their flesh to spur them to 
greater effort, naturally made conditions extremely un- 
pleasant for those who were alive. The ship finally 
anchored. Red Beard succeeded in twisting out of his 
manacles and escaped into the sea. We went with him 
to the shore about a mile away, where he crept up to a 
fishing hut and recuperated. In a few days he set out 

124 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


for Egypt in a merchant ship as a common sailor. He 
became a shade in a brawl in Alexandria and Sidi and 
I met him soon afterwards. He joined us and we went 
to my tower for a long rest. 

‘‘Red Beard informed us, after he was translated, 
that during his earthly existence he had led a double 
life. There were long periods during which his pro- 
fessional activities were suspended. He had a castle 
on an island in the ^T^gean Sea where he lived in great 
splendor and was known as the ‘Freckled Duke of 
Patmos.’ Nobody there suspected that he was Red 
Beard the pirate. 

“We found Kinisi waiting for us at my tower and we 
remained there for many years. The place acquired a 
bad reputation among mortals. Nobody who was 
alive was allowed to be there more than one night, and 
after several years visits to it were considered foolhardy 
and were entirely discontinued. When anybody tried 
to sleep there Red Beard and Sidi would appear before 
them and brandish big smoky knives and hop up and 
down, I would wave long white things in the back- 
ground, and Kinisi would fly toward them with a rush 
and suddenly fade. The invaders were never able to 
stand much of this and would usually jump through the 
windows into the gully in the rear, so after a while we 
had peace and privacy there. 

[251 


The Ghost in the Tower 


“I hope I am not boring you with this long recital, 
but in order that you may understand and appreciate 
some points that I intend to bring out later it is neces- 
sary to go into all this historical data.” 

“You are not boring me at all. On the contrary 
your story is of the greatest interest.” I replied, “but 
why did you spend practically all of your time with that 
swaggering Turk eater and those two pirates when one 
of your evident talents could have undoubtedly found 
more respectable society.^” 

“It does seem funny to you, don’t it? Kinisi and 
I were special friends in life and naturally the intimacy 
continued afterwards. As to the pirates, that was 
just a little fantasy of mine. I always had a penchant 
for making new acquaintances, and, until lately, I 
always liked the sea. It happened that, outside of the 
land wars that were generally going on, the pirates were 
in those times producing more shades than anybody 
else, not only from among themselves, but from the sea- 
faring public, and I found that by remaining with them 
I could constantly mingle with new specters that were 
congenial. I was stationed at the ‘port of entry’ — so 
to speak, and could select my new associates as my fancy 
dictated. I consorted with a lot of other pirates in a 
spiritual way, as you will hear later on. You see my 
experiences in conducting the affairs of my tower when 

[ 26 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


I was alive naturally predisposed me to association with 
those of that ilk in my disembodied state. 

‘‘I am inclined, if you will pardon me, to resent po- 
litely your implication that pirates were not respectable 
society. The live ones are much thicker now than they 
were then; they move in the very best circles, and sit at 
highly polished desks, instead of going out into the 
storms, fighting and killing clean for what they want. 
In our days a pirate was a gentleman adventurer, and 
everybody he hadn’t robbed thought well of him until 
he was captured and in chains, or killed, just as in the 
present day a pirate may be a ‘‘shrewd operator” and 
a “successful business man” until they get him, but we 
shall not discuss the ethics of piracy just now, for I am 
afraid our time will be exhausted before we get to what I 
would really like to talk about. With your permission 
I now return to the little company in my tower. 

“For the sake of brevity I shall omit details of our 
stay there and many important incidents of piratical 
history with which I and my incorporeal friends were 
more or less identified. We sojourned for awhile in 
Algiers and other places along the North African coasts, 
where the pirate nests were numerous. These financial 
centers were in a flourishing state of prosperity. The 
Mediterranean yielded rich harvests to skilfully con- 
ducted enterprises at that time, mostly from Spanish 


sources. 


127 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


‘‘In 1643, 1 think it was, we all drifted into the fore- 
castle of a ship that was bound for the West Indies. 
The Spanish Main was the paradise of the bloody buc- 
caneers, and the home of the far famed ^Jolly Roger,’ 
that floated in congenial airs from the masts of sinister 
looking ships that roved the wide waters and gathered 
their fruitful spoils. We anticipated a long period of 
ghostly entertainment. 

“We amused ourselves on the way over by keeping 
the captain and crew in a turmoil of apprehension. We 
muddled the compass, made phantom marlin spikes 
dance on the deck, and rattled the ropes at night when 
there was no wind. We made all sorts of bewildering 
noises on board, but were careful not to terrify anybody 
to such an extent as to cause a shortage in the crew. 
There was plenty of rum on the ship and the uncanny 
episodes were attributed to other spirits than us. We 
remained latent most of the time, but Kinisi insisted 
on visualizing in the captain’s cabin several nights just 
after eight bells struck, and he came very near causing 
the ship to be turned back. The tough old skipper 
didn’t care how many spooks infested the forcastle but 
he didn’t fancy them in his part of the vessel. 

“These things may all appear childish to you, but 
you must remember that we of the spirit world have a 
superfluity of time on our hands and that we look at 

[28] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


everything from a standpoint entirely our own. All 
folly is dependent upon the point of view. 

“When we arrived at Tortugas we found the whole 
island aflame with excitement over the exploit of a prom- 
inent buccaneer named Pierre le Grand, who had just 
bagged a big Spanish galleon containing fifty thousand 
pieces-of-eight, and was being overwhelmed with con- 
gratulations. 

“We drifted among many famous freebooters at 
Tortugas and Barbados — Alvarez, Hooper, Lolonais 
and others — all of whom were hunting noble quarry and 
doing a profitable business. The treasure laden gal- 
leons bound for Spain were rich picking. Tons of 
bullion and millions of pieces-of-eight were garnered 
from the highways of the sea. The proceeds were spent 
in riotous dissipation and orgies by the merry buc- 
caneers on shore and the rum dealers eventually acquired 
the greater part of the spoils. 

“The folds of the black flag rose and fell on the long 
oily swells, and the West Indian sea floors were littered 
with sunken timbers and Spanish skeletons. Those 
were days of frenzied finance on the Caribbean. 

“At Jamaica we had the pleasure of falling in with 
Captain Henry Morgan, who was one of the most re- 
nowned sea financiers of the seventeenth century, and 
we all settled on board his ship. 

(291 


The Ghost in the Tower 


“While Captain Morgan had to endure much oppro- 
bium from the world I know him to have been a gentle- 
man and a perfectly honest man, for he always divided 
the profits of his expeditions with fairness and exacti- 
tude among his associates. This is something that is 
seldom done now days, except as a matter of policy, or 
under compulsion, and I think it is worth while to note it. 

“We went with Morgan and his fleet on his famous 
expedition for the capture of Panama. We weighed 
anchor offthe cape of Tibur on December i6th, i670,and 
came to the island of St. Catherine three days later. 
The island was taken with little loss. We found few 
pieces-of-eight, but a much needed supply of powder. 
On the night of the 24th I visualized before Captain 
Morgan in his cabin. We had a long conversation, 
and I was able to give him much valuable advice and 
information which he deeply appreciated. I faded when 
seven bells struck just before dawn, and after he became 
a shade some years later he told me he had always 
considered that interview a most pleasurable experience. 

“I shall not consume time by describing the toilsome 
ascent of the Chagres river in small boats, the historic 
march overland, the final victorious battle, and the 
capture and sack of the rich Spanish city, for all this is 
embalmed in the annals of heroic achievement in which 
the world records its worship of success. 

130 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


‘‘We left Panama February 24th, 1671 with one hun- 
dred and seventy-five beasts of burden, carrying the 
profits of the enterprise, consisting of gold, silver, and 
valuable merchandise. We had six hundred prisoners 
to be held for ransom, and this brought forth much 
wealth that had been secreted when the city was taken. 
Notwithstanding the necessary misery and lamenta- 
tions of these hostages, it was a merry throng of ad- 
venturers that wound in triumph through the forest 
pathways back to the headwaters of the Chagres. 

“The Captain left the prisoners and a rebellious 
portion of his followers at the mouth of the river and we 
sailed to Jamaica, where he settled down to the life of a 
quiet gentleman. As he was wealthy he commanded 
respect and nobody questioned his record. Upon his 
transition into the immaterial state a few years after- 
ward we had the good fortune to have him join our 
party, and we found him in every way delightful. 

“Our ghostly little company was later augmented 
by the addition of Captain Teach, and no more blood- 
thirsty sea rover ever scuttled a ship, cut a throat, or 
blew open a treasure safe. He was of the roaring, 
ranting type that gives the tinge of the melodramatic 
to piratical annals. He had a black beard of inordinate 
length that reached from up around his eyes to his 
waist, and he used to twist it into tails with bits of 
ribbon and fix it up around his ears. 

131 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


“We were all with him on board his big ship, the 
“Great Allen” mounting forty guns, the name of which 
he afterwards changed to the “Queen Anne’s Revenge.” 
He was a hard drinker and we agreed that we had never 
seen a more turbulent and desperate character. For 
years he terrorized the sea from the Carolinas to Trini- 
dad. 

“One night we witnessed the capture of a Yankee 
vessel bound from New York to Jamaica, under com- 
mand of a Captain Taylor. The pirates streamed over 
the larboard quarter of the fated ship, but they rnet 
with unexpected resistance. The attackers were nearly 
all disembodied when suddenly, with blood curdling 
shrieks, Teach bounded over the side on to the deck 
into the midst of the pirates, and Taylor’s shade told 
us afterwards that he had never seen a more horrible 
object. Lighted tapers hung from the rim of his broad 
black hat that revealed the whites of the gleaming eyes, 
the gnashing teeth, frightful red mouth, and flying 
masses of black whiskers. He waved a huge cutlass 
and a brace of pistols hung on his breast. With de- 
monic howls and yells this fiendish figure plunged 
among the Yankees. Encouraged by this sudden ap- 
parition the pirates rallied and the ship was soon theirs. 
The dead were heaved overboard. From them we soon 
learned all of the particulars of the fight, and they were 

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The Ghost in the Tower 

most dramatic. Teach used to burn pots of brimstone 
in his cabin to make his crew think he was the devil, 
and many of them believed it. He kept a big green 
parrot in a cage on the deck of his ship. In the midst 
of the smoke and din of battle the raucous voice of the 
ill-omened bird would be heard above the roar of the 
conflict, yelling, ‘Go it! — Go it! — Pieces-of-Eight! — 
Pieces-of-Eight!’ 

“Teach once marooned a lot of his men, after an 
unusually rich capture, so as to avoid paying their 
share of the profits. He put them on a small desert 
island and, with loud curses and imprecations, sailed 
away. Some of them were subsequently rescued and 
accomplished his transition. When we met him after- 
wards he was much subdued but eager to square ac- 
counts with his old enemies — another illustration of 
the survival of a ruling passion under conditions that 
would seem to discourage its activity. 

“Our party now consisted of Kinisi, Sidi ben Musa, 
Red Beard, Morgan, Teach and myself, and you will 
admit that this was quite a formidable troop of specters. 
We spent many years together which I shall pass over, 
as there were no events of especial interest — merely a 
long lapse of spiritual quiet. 

“In 1 8 1 8 we were all in New York and had the honor 
of meeting the shade of Captain William Kidd one 

[ 33 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


night on the steps of the sub-treasury. The Captain 
had been hanged in England as a pirate in 1701 and for 
over forty years his bones had rattled in an iron cage, 
suspended from a gibbet near the Thames. He in- 
formed us that he at one time buried considerable 
treasure in the neighborhood of the Island of Manhat- 
tan, and his object in staying in the vicinity was to 
haunt people who were constantly digging to find his 
gold. 

‘‘He seemed exceedingly good natured and charitable 
in his ideas. He wanted somebody to find the money 
who would devote it to some great benevolent use, that 
in a way would wipe out the foul stains of its acquire- 
ment. Doubtless you have noticed that nowadays 
many senile and repentant, successful and therefore 
honorable gentlemen are heaving great masses of gold 
into public benefactions to ease similar pangs of aveng- 
ing conscience. 

“We all assured Kidd that it was foolish to think 
of such things — that conscience was only a form of 
fear — that no stains were as fleeting as those upon gold, 
and that there was no odor in the world that could 
cling to it, not even that of sanctity. 

“For years we helped Kidd guard his idle capital. 
All sorts of men came after it. Several times Kinisi 
and Kidd visualized when the wrong people were getting 

[ 34 ] 




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too close to the big iron chests. They could of course 
only do this at night. In the day time all we could do 
was to keep the dirt falling back into the hole until it 
became dark. Teach wanted to let the diggers get 
the hole well opened and then tumble them in and cover 
them up, the way he used to do when he had somebody 
help him dig a treasure hole. He always shot the dig- 
ger and left him in there with the chest so as to insure 
future secrecy. Many business secrets are made safe 
now on the same principle but the method is more in- 
direct. 

‘‘The years rolled on and there were many changes 
on the lower end of the island. Clusters of robber baron 
towers projected into the sky. The narrow streets be- 
came deep canyons through which ran streams of gold, 
and among them were congregated the mad hordes of 
avarice, including some of the most expert malefactors 
in the world. 

“At the head of the principal canyon the tall steeple 
of Trinity Church stood like a monolith to the memory 
of Christianity, for in the midst of that web of Belial 
was a Christian spire. The money changers had en- 
gulfed the temple and its mission had become a mockery. 

“We met many interesting spirits in the church 
yard. Countless suicide shades flocked to the island 
from all over the country, for it was here that the ten- 

135 ] 






t 


The Ghost in the Tower 

tacles of the octopi centered that had felled them. In 
life they had been tortured, crushed and driven to des- 
pair by organized rapacity and chicanery. Feeble sal- 
utes from among the sunken timbers of long lost galleons 
may greet these gray files as they drift away into time’s 
obscurities. 

We kept our little party well together and we had 
to be somewhat exclusive. There were many lady 
shades. They seemed fascinated with Teach and 
floated after him wherever he went. He had a peculiarly 
devilish and swashbuckling air about him, and a sub- 
tle suggestion of original sin that lured them on. 

“The shade of an old money shark, who used to 
burn his warehouses and send out rotten ships to stormy 
seas for the insurance, and who had once sold his grand- 
mother to a medical college, kindly offered us the hospi- 
tality of his crypt during the day time, provided we 
would agree that it would in some way benefit him later. 
He complained that just before he was translated he 
had been ‘trimmed’ and ‘ironed out,’ as he expressed it. 
Some skunks had high financed him and had filched 
practically all his gold by what he considered ‘dishonor- 
able methods.’ We extended our heartfelt sympathy 
and moved in. 

“At night we usually congregated in the belfry of 
Trinity, or down the street in the sub-treasury. We 

1361 


The Ghost in the Tower 


enjoyed being there, and Red Beard and Teach liked to 
float through the small crevices and air pipes into the 
big steel vaults and fondle the gold. The vast piles of 
bonds and paper money did not seem to interest them. 

‘‘One night when we were out on the steps back of 
the Washington statue we saw a shade drifting up and 
down Wall street in a hazy, dreamy, uncertain sort of 
way. He looked queer. Evidently he had been portly, 
and had worn a gray suit, a mess of side whiskers and a 
straw hat when he had passed into the immaterial 
world. We made ourselves known to him. We learned 
that he had been translated early that afternoon and he 
was trying to find out what the market had done since. 

“His name had been Waters and he had been shot 
by a woman for some reason that he did not explain. 
We invited him up into the sub-treasury, and while he 
seemed even more anxious than Red Beard and Teach 
to get his hands on the gold, he floated blissfully back 
and forth among the currency and bond stacks so long 
that we had difficulty in getting him out through one 
of the pipes and over to the church yard before dawn. 
We were only able to do this by assuring him that he 
could go in and mingle with the money every night 
forever, if it lasted that long, and he replied that he 
never had suspected that heaven was so fine as all that. 
We thought that anybody who could regard that 

[ 37 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


neighborhood as heaven was an abnormal optimist, 
and in the material world he would need immediate 
medical attention, but then you know some people are 
that way. After we had heard Water’s history we 
knew that there was no heaven anywhere that he could 
ever break into. 

‘‘The second night after it had happened, he took us 
up to what had been his office in one of the robber baron 
towers on Broad street, in which he had been shot. 
We found his partner there, a man named Rivetts, who 
was looting the safe and fixing the accounts so that 
Waters’ estate would come out at the small end of the 
horn. Waters visualized and haunted Rivetts so effect- 
ually that he jumped through the nineteenth story 
window into the street, to the great delight of Teach 
who regarded it as one of the best jokes he had ever 
known. 

“Waters told us that when he was translated he was 
long a big block of U. S. Steel and short a lot of Reading, 
and some hyenas were trying to shake him out of the 
Steel and run him in on the Reading. He pulled over 
and studied with feverish avidity a basket full of paper 
tape, from what he called a ticker in the corner, and 
declared that if he had lived another two days he would 
have had all their hides on his back yard fence. You 
may know what some of these expressions mean. To 

1381 


The Ghost in the Tower 


us they seemed technical and confusing, but we gathered 
that death had deprived Waters of a ship load of pieces- 
of-eight and we felt very sorry for him. 

‘‘After that he took us around to dozens of offices at 
night. We saw the daylight haunts of swivel chair 
buccaneers, whose quarter decks were mahogany desks, 
and who preyed upon the vitals of the country of their 
birth, and the nests of merciless super-piratical com- 
binations that mulcted mankind by impounding the 
necessities of life. We went to a building on lower 
Broadway where Waters said there were huge vaults full 
of the products of the most highly refined rascality in 
existence. He took us to the vaults of several food 
trusts, corporation attorneys, and banks, and showed 
us various documents and other evidence of wholesale 
plunder and remorseless nation-wide robbery that 
would have taken our breaths away if we had had any. 
It was a sort of a travelogue — a sight seeing tour in a 
region of unbelievable iniquity. We were indeed in 
shark infested waters. 

“It occurs to you no doubt that the word buccaneers 
and other sea terms that I am using, pertain, properly 
speaking, to nautical financeering only, but it is not 
out of place to apply them to similar professional act- 
ivities on land, for it really makes little difference to a 
genuine pirate, or to those he despoils, whether he 
stands on a wooden deck or on an oriental office rug. 

[ 39 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 






‘‘After these nocturnal rounds among the robbers’ 
roosts it was our custom to assemble in the belfry, 
where Waters would deliver thrilling talks on the meth- 
ods of the ‘Wizards of Finance’ and the ‘Kings of the 
Street’, as he called them. These meetings were neces- 
sarily open, and many stranger shades often hovered 
about and listened. Hosts of evil spirits moved in the 
surrounding gloom and mocked with sepulchral and 
mephitic laughter when Walters dilated upon famous 
financial atrocities in which some of them had been 
participants. 

“We naturally had a professional interest in Waters’ 
tales of present day freebooting, and for several nights 
he held us spell bound.” 

At this point I asked my shadowy friend on the 
stairway if he didn’t think it rather incongruous, or at 
least in bad taste, for the shades of such a malodorous 
bevy of professional villains as he had with him, to 
hold spiritual convocations in a church belfry. 

“Not at all! Not at all!”, he replied. “We found 
after spending a few nights with Waters that we were as 
a small flock of babbling goslings, or like little twitter- 
ing snow birds on a limb, so to speak, compared to 
the voracious human hawks and grand larceny special- 
ists in the neighboring towers, from the tops of which 
no Jolly Rogers flew — they were too smooth for that. 

[ 40 ] 




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The church was quite the appropriate retreat for our 
party, considering the character of the neighborhood, 
and it might not be out of place to suggest that we 
would not have been safe even there if we had had money. 
The gold of a stranger in these parts would disappear 
like autumn leaves before the wind. A doubloon 
dropped anywhere in the vicinity in the day time would 
scarcely have got to the sidewalk and might have caused 
instantaneous bloodshed. It would be like tossing a 
yellow canary bird into a cage of wild cats. 

‘'Waters said that the Savior would not have been 
admitted to Trinity Church on Sunday on account of 
his clothes, and if he should appear and stand at the 
corner of Broad and Wall for two minutes somebody 
would take away his halo, his sandals and his robe. 
He would be divested of everything that was his and 
be cast adrift in the darkness when the day was done. 

may say, parenthetically, there was one Spirit 
we never met in the neighborhood. In fact none of our 
party ever seemed to have been in its presence at any time. 

‘‘At night we saw troops of sinister and ravenous 
shades prowling among the gloomy evil hives in this 
lair of Mammon like famished wolves upon ground 
where they had once killed. 

“Waters continued his revelations, with few inter- 
ruptions, for a month or more, for it took a long time 

[411 


The Ghost in the Tower 


to communicate his extensive knowledge of the inner 
workings of the up-to-date methods of gold accumula- 
tion. When he had finished I must admit that we shud- 
dered at the damnable realities he portrayed. At one 
point we who had head coverings removed them rever- 
ently and bowed toWaters. Teach threw his semblance 
of a black wide brimmed hat into the air, with a hollow 
ghastly yell that brought many curious, pale peering 
faces up from among the old crumbling stones in the 
church yard. 

“Captain Morgan observed that all these operations 
were evidently conducted without bodily risk — in other 
words, without the exercise of personal courage — and 
the necessary murder involved was accomplished by 
slow drawn out processes that inflicted needless suffer- 
ing and misery on entirely too many people. The cut- 
lass, the plank walking, and the ‘Long Tom’, loaded 
with grape-shot, were much more merciful, although 
less effective as profit producers. He made the point 
that old fashioned piracy was to a certain extent re- 
deemed by the individual valor of the pirates. They 
took brave men’s chances and carried their lives in 
their hands, and that, at least, was one feature of their 
business that was entitled to respect. He considered 
on the whole that, from an ethical standpoint, modern 
methods were much more reprehensible than the old. 

[421 


The Ghost in the Tower 


“Waters’ continued narrations were like tales from 
the Arabian Nights. They made all of us feel so insig- 
nificant that after a while we concluded that we didn’t 
like him. Somehow we didn’t feel very prominent when 
he was about, and we began to avoid him. We spent 
much of our time in the sub-treasury and bank vaults 
watching new shades vainly clutching at the money 
stacks with their pale fingers. 

“The insane strife of the hordes of mortals to see 
who can die beside the biggest gold pile has always been 
considered a rich joke in the spirit world, for when they 
come among us they are unable to bring any of it with 
them. The accumulation in the sub-treasury is very 
convenient for them to gloat over and it continues their 
worldly illusions perfectly. As a matter of fact it is 
just as consistent for them to gloat over this vaulted 
gold in their spiritual state as it was for them to strut 
and swell with pride over the earthly wealth on which 
they had their short leases during life. 

“You might be interested in knowing something of 
the present state of a few well known shades. Washing- 
ton, Lincoln, and many other translated statesmen are 
no longer here. Most of the mighty dead were men of 
settled convictions. Long ago a lot of these potent and 
highly respected phantoms became disgusted with polit- 
ical developments and with mundane conditions gener- 


The Ghost in the Tower 


ally. They left the earth’s atmosphere and are now flock- 
ing about on the moon, where there are no politics 
whatever and plenty of big holes and extinct craters to 
crawl into when perfect seclusion is desired. 

‘‘Since Pharoah left the Red Sea he has been on 
Mars. Many of those who became famous in the world 
for murdering on a large scale are now there. They 
find the redness of that planet most congenial. Napo- 
leon still remains in the earth’s atmosphere for he still 
hopes that some day he will come back. Socrates, Sir 
Isaac Newton, Columbus, and numerous other worthy 
shades, are on one of the satellites of J upiter where finally 
they are beyond the reach of hostile criticism. Nebu- 
chadnezzar, who built and worshipped an image of gold, 
and who was dethroned by the Lord and sent into the 
fields to eat grass, is now at the North Pole. In that 
frigid silence there is no grass or gold and there will he 
stay forever. 

“This reminds me that great multitudes of shades 
are waiting eagerly for Bill Hohenzollern. While it is 
true that, in your modern and expressive slang, he is 
what might be called a ‘dead one’, he has not yet been 
actually translated. 

“In suggesting the proper disposition of a particu- 
larly offensive public malefactor, one of your American 
orators once advised casting him out of the universe 

[441 


The Ghost in the Tower 


through ^the hole in the sky’. This hole in the sky, 
astronomers tell us, is somewhere off down near the 
Southern Cross. It is a vast void in the firmament in 
which there is no planet, star or other heavenly body. 
No starry worlds, in their eternal orbits, ever intersect 
that awful abyss. No stellar lights ever twinkle there 
— no meteors ever stream through that Stygian dark- 
ness, where creation has left an appalling and dismal 
blank. When William Hohenzollern comes among us 
there will be a gala event in the spirit world. He will 
be rolled up into a misty wad, loaded into a long pale 
tube with millions of feet of poison gas, and shot out of 
the cosmos through that awful hiatus among the con- 
stellations — that frightful chasm in the universe, where 
he will forever be beyond infinity itself — and where even 
the Almighty, whom he once claimed as his part- 
ner, may never again be able to find him for consulta- 
tion. He will be beyond the limits of communication, 
and even the music of the spheres can never reach him. 
It’s the hole in the sky for Bloody Bill, and we are all 
looking forward in pleasurable anticipation to a day 
of great spiritual exaltation and rarefied enjoyment. 

During his eruptive period he probably acted no 
worse than a great many other humans would with 
the same opportunities — he was one of the results of a 
bad system — the point of a much aggravated protu- 
berance that had to be lanced. We all realize that 


[45] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


history has finally demonstrated that autocracy is 
wrong. We greatly envy you who live in an age that is 
beholding the dawn of cohesive democracy, and the 
passing of conditions that have made it possible forone 
man to hold the destiny of millions in the hollow of his 
hand. Bill will be forgiven — but after he is projected. 

“One night Kinisi and I were alone in the belfry. 
Out in the moonlight we saw Sidi ben Musa, Red 
Beard, Morgan, Teach and Kidd, lined up among 
the tombstones in the church yard. They appeared to 
be making unfamiliar movements. I asked Kinisi what 
he thought they were doing and he replied that they 
seemed to be kicking themselves, and that they had 
been acting that way every night for a week. He 
thought that, like the robins in autumn, they had 
flocked and were preparing to migrate. 

“These shades, who, in life, had been relentless 
highwaymen of the seas — blood bespattered, remorse- 
less, steeped in murder, arson, theft and unnamable 
crimes — the heels of whose boots had dripped with 
human gore on a thousand decks — held their spectral 
hands aloft and were aghast when they realized the 
pitiful inconsequence and puny achievement of their 
futile careers. 

“There was a big storm one night and we never saw 
them again. The valiant and hardy little band may 

146 ] 


“MY OLD TOWER IN HUNGARY” 



"YJIAOVIUH m H3V/0T OJO YM“ 



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have drifted out over the sea with the heavy off-shore 
wind and rolling mists, and may now be peacefully 
haunting the scenes of their former tame profiteering 
and modest killings, where spiritual life is not as stren- 
uous as we found it in the twentieth century Gomorrah 
that we contemplated from the belfry of Trinity. 

“Kinisi wanted to stay with Waters for a while long- 
er, but I had had enough of modern money centers. 
I left one night in a freight car that was loaded with 
light wines and moving westward. Although it was 
marked for Atchison, Kansas, I had no difficulty in 
turning it up into Michigan, to where I seemed impelled 
by some unaccountable instinct. I may say incident- 
ally that many wandering freight cars with spirits on 
board are now being diverted over strange routes by 
ghostly direction, and much of the present freight con- 
fusion is due to that cause. That was several years 
ago, and, so far as I know, the car is still at Benton 
Harbor. 

“I drifted along the lake shore and around in the 
hills for some time, and one night I was amazed to see 
what looked like my old tower in Hungary. I promptly 
decided to haunt this place, after I had investigated it, 
on account of the old associations it brought to mind. 
It was impossible for me to go back to my old tower, for 
things have changed so much in Hungary that I would 

[471 


The Ghost in the Tower 


take no comfort there, so you see I have turned over a 
new leaf and here I am. 

“A little while after you came in you were doubtless 
surprised, and possibly startled, by certain sounds that 
it was necessary for me to make in the top of the tower. 
I was communicating with Kinisi, who at that moment 
was in the belfry of Trinity, and I have no doubt that 
he got my message and will be here before long. You 
see that in the spiritual world we have always used the 
Hertzian waves. You have only recently found them 
with your wireless telegraphy and telephony. By cer- 
tain peculiar sound modulations, properly keyed, we 
are enabled to utilize the waves in a way that your 
modern science has not yet discovered. I imagine such 
communications might properly be called phanto- 
grams. Before many years you will be able to talk 
to friends in New York — if you have any — by simply 
raising a third story window and pitching your tones 
into the exact harmonic, as you heard me do to- 
night. It’s all quite simple when you know how. 
That heavy thumping in the pipes was just a local 
manifestation and it had nothing to do with the 
message to Kinisi. 

‘‘Any spiritual sound or demonstration, in which 
ghostly noise of any kind is produced, is known among 
us as a ‘skreek’. Skreeks have a wide range of utility. 

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They may be vibrated over vast distances, as I just 
exemplified from the tower top, or used in a merely 
local way, like the expression in the pipes. 

^Tn the summer time you often hear funny squeaky 
noises and loud thumps in the water pipes that connect 
with the guest tents on the bluff. Well, that’s me. 
While I am among the tents a great deal in the summer, 
I play the pipes from the tower, so whenever you hear 
these skreeks after this you will understand the cause. 
I tried the main pipes tonight just to see if they were 
keeping their tonality in cold weather. 

‘^Since I’ve been here I’ve greatly enjoyed myself. I 
take much pleasure in wandering about the farm at 
night. I spend considerable time in our friend’s corn- 
fields during the warm summer nights where I meet 
many Indian shades. They are among the stalks in 
the dark, cracking the joints to make them grow faster. 
In October they stay in the shocks and rustle the dry 
leaves at night. They used to live all over these bluffs 
in their little wigwams. Sometimes I spend hours in the 
farm house between the walls, listening to our friend 
Jacobs and his guests. A lot of friends come to see him 
who interest me, and some of them I would like to meet 
in the way I have met you tonight. Please remember 
me to Professor Dientsbach, who has charge of the chil- 
dren’s saxophone band, when you see him, and get him 

[ 49 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


up here some Christmas eve if you can. He has had the 
band in the tower on several occasions, and it afforded 
me much pleasure. Give my regards to the small boy 
you call the ‘Hot Spot’, and assure him and his little 
sister Gertie that there is nothing at all in the tower for 
them to be afraid of, and I am always glad to have them 
come up here and play. 

“Sometimes I go up to Thunder Knob, the big sand 
dune north of here. The shades of an Indian hunter 
and a large sand bear have been fighting inside of this 
dune off and on for many years. When they are quiet 
too long I go in and stir them up. 

“I often visit the little chapel on the next hill during 
winter nights, and sit there until early morning — in 
fact it is one of my favorite haunts when I am outside 
of the tower. I also find much diversion in drifting 
about in the dark through the winter woods and along 
the lake shore when everything is frozen up. This 
winter I have spent several nights in the deserted pavil- 
ion on the beach, amusing myself with the phonograph 
records in the corner. Sometime they will learn to can 
heat and cold as they do sound. The winds down there 
in the winter are very wheezy and I like it.” 

There was a long silence after this. I changed my 
position on the box against the wall and thought 
possibly that I must have dozed for a few minutes and 

[ 50 ] 


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missed part of the story, but was not sure of it. I 
‘ looked up on the stairway, but apparently my ghost was 
not there. Evidently he had faded with the first gray 
morning light that was now stealing into the tower, and 
had taken his long lingering thirst down below to his 
phantom flagon of musty wine. 

I waited for some time, but remembering what he 
had said about a possible sudden disappearance, I 
concluded that it was useless to remain longer. 

I arrived at the farm house just in time for break- 
fast, and, immediately afterward I began this tale of 
what I had seen and heard in the tower, while the facts 
were still fresh in my mind. 

Up to that memorable Christmas eve I was entirely 
unfamiliar with Hungarian history, and did not know 
whether anybody by the name of Emric Szapolyia had 
ever lived or not. Naturally I was very curious on the 
subject and anxious to convince myself that I had not 
been dreaming in the tower. 

I obtained a copy of Godkin’s ‘‘History of Hungary 
and the Magyars,” and succeeded in locating my ghost- 
ly friend in a chapter devoted to the career of King 
Mathias Corvinus, who reigned between 1457 and 1480. 
The account given of him coincided with what he had 
told me as far as it went. While he was referred to as a 
general and duke, it did not mention his tower, or the 


The Ghost in the Tower 


fact that he had ever been a ‘‘robber baron,” but the 
omission of such trifling details in a brief summary of 
his period was to be expected. He was mentioned as 
“an able and experienced officer, never at a loss for an 
expedient in the midst of the most unpromising cir- 
cumstances, always cool and collected.” 

His friend Paul Kinisi was alluded to as “the Murat 
of the Magyar army — fiery, brilliant, ostentatious, 
galloping to the charge with flashing sabre and in 
splendid costume.” I also found confirmation of Kin- 
isi’s exploit with the three Turks, related by the ghost. 
As the historical allusions in his narrative corresponded 
with such authentic fragments as I was able to find 
concerning him and his friend Kinisi, I assumed that 
the rest of his story was equally reliable. While I was 
unable to verify all of his statements, any doubts as to 
the reality of the interview were dissipated. 

I carefully searched such piratical lore as I had access 
to and found that there was nothing in the tale in the 
tower that was inconsistent with recorded facts relating 
to piracy on the high seas from Szapolyia’s time on 
earth down to that of the sojourn of the ghostly crew on 
the Island of Manhattan. In “The Book of Pirates” 
I found the life stories of nearly all of the sea faring 
Wizards of Finance with whom he stated that he had 
associated. There appears to be no record of any of 

[ 52 ] 


The Ghost in the Tower 


them having been haunted at any time, but the 
haunter was of course much better qualified to tell of 
this than some skeptical, and perhaps careless, histor- 
ian who was not there at the time. 

One of our illustrations is from an old photograph 
of Wall Street and Trinity Church, probably taken 
some time before the ghost left New York. It is un- 
fortunate that it could not have been made at night 
and possibly have revealed at least some of the filmy 
forms of the piratical crew on the sub-treasury steps. 
It would then be a welcome bit of corroborative evi- 
dence in case the specter’s veracity should ever be 
questioned. 

I thought that some of the strictures and compari- 
sons made by my phantom friend were somewhat 
severe, but I have included them in this chronicle for 
the sake of accuracy. We all have different points of 
view, and I suppose, from his standpoint, the elucida- 
tion of present day business methods by the shade of 
the case-hardened Mr. Waters, did make that spectral 
little band of freebooters feel rather cheap and dis- 
gruntled. The contrasts between their times and ours 
of course shocked them, but they should have remem- 
bered that in an age of progress everything must ad- 
vance, and human villainy would naturally be deeper 
and greater now than during their periods. I thought 

[531 


The Ghost in the Tower 


that Waters might have been a little more tactful and 
considerate. He should have revealed the situation in a 
way that would not have humiliated the gentle little 
crew in the belfry by making them feel that they had 
been out classed and, that if they had been alive, they 
would have been without professional distinction. 



[541 


'Postscript 


DID not mention my experience in the tower, 
until after I had finished writing the account 
of it, for the reason that I was anxious that 
discussion with others should not disturb any of my 
impressions of the visit with the ghost — at least until 
after I had recorded them. When the story was com- 
pleted, I mailed the manuscript to my friend Jacobs, 
and, in a few days, received the following reply: 

My dear Mr. Reed:- 

I have read your narrative with much interest, and 
am delighted that a path appears to have been opened 
that may lead to an explanation of many queer and 
mysterious things that have happened on my Michigan 
farm during the past few years. I had no idea that my 
water tower was the abode of a distinguished spook, 
and I congratulate you on having met that fine old 
remnant of a past age face to face. I envy you this 
honor which I hope I may also enjoy at some time in 
the future. 

Of course I have known for a long time about the 
ghost of Matt Jaeckel. It has been on the place for 
years and has chased so many people at different times 
that we have all come to consider it as an old acquain- 

[ 55 ] 



The Ghost in the Tower 


tance, but you seem to have unearthed an entirely new 
specter. I am afraid that if any more ghosts appear on 
my farm I will have difficulty in selling the property if 
I should ever conclude to dispose of it. 

I was deeply interested in the old robber baron’s 
spiritual history down to the time of the arrival of the 
little crew of eminent phantoms in New York. I 
must confess that I felt somewhat shocked at some of 
his comments on the business activities of that city. 
I have a great many friends there who would have 
materially changed his belief in the moral hopelessness 
of his modern surroundings if they had been in a dis- 
embodied state and in a position to explain many 
things to him which the shade of Waters apparently 
ignored. 

Waters evidently had been a pirate, pure and un- 
adorned — a type of the financial thimbleriggers and 
wild-cat operators who claw at everything and everybody 
they can reach. It seems quite natural that his spirit 
should mingle with the piratical wraithy flock on the 
steps of the sub-treasury, but I think if the phantom 
baron’s story is to go out into the world you ought to 
send some sort of an antidote with it. 

While it is perfectly true that there is a lot of in- 
iquity in New York just as there is everywhere else, it 
must not be forgotten that vast enterprises have origi- 

[561 


The Ghost in the Tower 


nated there that have been of infinite value to mankind. 
I think the observations of the ghost might well be taken 
as a text, and I am tempted to express some of the 
thoughts that came to me while reading the story. 

Of course we cannot argue with a ghost, any more 
than we can convince a deceased writer that he was 
wrong, but we may always combat what we believe to 
be fallacy, whether its author is in existence or not. 

The old robber baron lived and died in a sphere of 
life that gave him an unhealthy and morbid point of 
view and it seems natural that such a mental attitude 
should be in some way reflected in his spiritual state. 
Through him we have a shadowy expression of archaic 
ideas and obsolete conceptions of the mission and 
ideals of mankind. He is a faint echo of a tumultuous 
past, ruled by the lust of gold and blood, when men 
recognized only the law of the jungle. In the light of 
our present day civilization we may well forgive him. 

Whatever my private beliefs may be as to ghosts and 
the activities of departed spirits, I am assuming that 
this old party in the tower is in a spiritual state, and that 
you did have the visit with him that you have written 
about, for I have always considered you perfectly 
truthful. 

This old ghost’s continued association with that 
renowned sea faring gang of phantoms, and his contact 

1571 


The Ghost in the Tower 


with the unholy shade of Waters, probably excluded 
him from the society of the departed spirits of those 
who helped to build up the world during the period 
of his story. Undoubtedly even in spirit realms the 
line must be drawn some where. Had he enjoyed the 
advantages of proper ghostly companionship in New 
York he might have learned that he was haunting a 
region where some of the great constructive problems 
of the age are being worked out — where, if he had been 
alive, he might have felt the financial pulsations of a 
continent. He would have learned that, outside of the 
tricky stock manipulators, iniquitous combinations, 
blue-sky schemers, and hosts of other parasites and 
pests that always flourish in centers of financial activity, 
great forces there have helped to lay the foundations 
upon which the prosperity of the nation rests. Many 
millions have gone forth from this great financial center 
that have webbed the map of our country with railway 
lines, encircled its sea borders with prosperous docks, 
established mammoth industrial enterprises, erected 
and endowed universities, libraries and benevolent insti- 
tutions, founded innumerable charities and movements 
for the investigation and control of disease, and done 
hundreds of other things that humanity would never 
have done for itself without the initiative of individuals 
with power to give form and effect to ideas for the good 
of mankind. 


[581 


The Ghost in the Tower 


The hue and cry against what is called ‘‘big busi- 
ness” is the turbulent protest of the untutored mob — 
the yelp of the Bolshevik. In our modern social struc- 
ture certain concentrations of wealth are inevitable 
and seem necessary to our economic life. The physical 
expression and realization of great individual ideas 
are impossible without them. Such ideas have de- 
veloped the potential and latent resources of this 
country so that it has become a world power. The 
savages, who at one time owned the entire continent, 
could not have done this, any more than Captains 
Teach, Morgan and Kidd, and the rest of that destruc- 
tive crew would have done it if they could. They 
would never have made it possible to transport a ton of 
freight a mile for less than a cent and a quarter, which is 
now done in America as a result of intelligent organiza- 
tion, co-operation and cumulative effort. In the absence 
of such highly perfected co-ordination a Chinese coolie, 
working for twenty cents a day, with two baskets sus- 
pended from a yoke on his shoulders, with the greatest 
physical effort, transports commodities at a rate which 
would be the equivalent of one ton per mile per day, or 
twenty cents per ton. 

There are so many factors that enter into the intel- 
ligent carrying out of large constructive ideas that it 
would be quite hopeless to attempt to enumerate them 

1591 


The Ghost in the Tower 


in a brief general reference to the subject. We might 
for illustration take certain enthusiastic promoters, 
who, with a vision of what transportation facilities 
might produce from some region with vast undeveloped 
resources, conceive the idea of the construction of a 
railroad. Through their optimism, persistent agitation 
and presentation of the commercial possibilities of the 
project they finally attract the requisite capital. First 
the funds are provided for preliminary surveys to de- 
termine the most feasible route. Reports are made by 
experts, money is furnished for grading, men in the for- 
ests are cutting timber for ties, cars, bridges, buildings, 
etc., others are toiling in distant mines extracting ore 
that long low steamers take over the Great Lakes to 
the steel mills, where it is swung out of the holds by 
huge cranes. In glowing furnaces it is metamorphosed 
into red streams that cool in the forms required for 
the infinite fabrications to follow. It enters into the 
construction of rails, locomotives, box cars, passenger 
coaches, telegraph wires, block signal devices, and all 
the countless other things that, in this age of steel and 
wheels, go into that great expression of the triumph of 
mind over matter — the modern railroad. 

Perhaps several years elapse before the road is in 
running condition. It may have its vicissitudes, re- 
ceivership, bankruptcy, and reorganization, but at last 

1601 




The Ghost in the Tower 

the dream of the promoters comes true. All of the 
manifold forces and influences that have had their 
part in the growth and realization of the original idea 
have found fruition. Cumulative effort has succeeded 
and a ton of freight is carried a mile for less than a cent 
and a quarter. Out of a turmoil of varied fortunes a 
virile factor has been born into the economic world that 
has made life easier for those within its environment, 
and figuratively, has made “two blades of grass grow 
where but one grew before.” This is one of the gradual 
processes of civilization. 

Conservation, utility, efficiency and economy are 
the watchwords of the day, and, while the cry of 
Teach’s parrot from the bloody deck of his pirate ship — 
‘ Tieces-of-Eight ! — Pieces-of-Eight !” — may be echoed 
now and then within the shadow of Trinity’s spire, we 
who are alive and in the enjoyment of rational mental- 
ity, know that there are a great many things in that 
neighborhood that are entitled to our profound ad- 
miration. 

I hope that you will not feel that I have intentionally 
written anything that may detract from the interest of 
your story, for it delights me very much. We may 
dismiss with smiles many of the observations of our 
ghostly friend, for after all — like himself — they are 
mere phantoms, and as such we may enjoy them. If 

161 ] 




The Ghost in the Tower 

I had known of the wraithy guest in my tower, and his 
“phantom flagon” I would perhaps have spent more 
time up there than I have, for even a phantom flagon 
now would have certain attractions that it would be 
flippant to dwell upon in this letter. 

Next Christmas eve I will go up to the tower, and 
possibly I may be favored with a “visitation.” If so 
I may go over some things I have mentioned in this 
letter, but, as I have before intimated, there would not 
be much use trying to convince a ghost of anything. 
There is too much of that kind of argument in the 
world already. It will be better to try and make him 
feel at home and as comfortable as possible. If he 
should fail to appear it might be well to leave another 
spirit on the stairway where he might find it. That 
possibly would change his views into a rosy glow of 
optimism, for the world is not nearly as bad as he paint- 
ed it to you. He ought to have something to cheer 
him up, for, with the amount of time that he has on 
his hands he will find such a state of mind very weari- 
some. 

Hoping that you will enjoy next Christmas eve as 
much as you evidently did the last one, I remain, with 
kindest regards, 

Yours sincerely, 

Henry W. Jacobs. 


1621 


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